Familiarity & Betrayal
by Mitchie Love
Summary: Following the new generation, this is a tale of change and betrayal. Loyalties will be tested as a group of rebels rises.
1. Chapter 1

_Everything is falling,  
>But I don't know where to land.<br>-A Very Potter Musical, Music & Lyrics by Darren Criss_

Rose folded her clothes gingerly and set them neatly in her trunk the way her mother had shown her. She was going into her fifth year at Hogwarts School of Wizardry now. Shecould remember the nerves she had her first day. How everything seemed so giant.

Hogwarts had changed many things between the Weasley and Potter cousins. Rivalries were beginning to form between siblings and cousins. They no longer were the bunch that sat in the middle of the fireplace late Christmas night at the Burrow and whispered about how awesome Hogwarts was going to be. In one year in specific, James received all the attention from every one of them.

He had smirked in that way that reminded Rose strangely of her dad when he felt proud of himself. She had wanted to call him out on it, but the information her cousin held was much more important than correcting his big ego. Of course, during her first year, she noticed that a lot of the things were a lie.

The sorting hat hadn't tortured her the way she thought it would. It was placed on top of her head by Headmaster McGonagall, who smiled at her in a way that made Rose believe she had high expectations for her. As she sat there, the hat talked into her head and began to poke around places. Then, it began to talk about how she was a Weasley and that there was no doubt she was a Gryffindor.

She even noticed a little smile on the Professor as she called out the next person.

Before being sorted, she had watched carefully the expressions of all the other new Hogwarts students. Some were more confident about what they were going to get than others. There was only one Hatstall, which was actually her now best friend, Cornelia McLaggen. She was smart, brunnette of green eyes who always had a calculating smirk on her face.

As her cousin, Al, was being sorted, she watched his pale face closely, inspecting every single detail. Eventually, he seemed to relax and there was a glint in his eye. In her mind, she could already hear the sorting hat saying what house he was in. They had both been so nervous about the sorting, but now she was positive about what they were both going to get. Actually, she was probably more excited about knowing was where her new friends would be placed.

Slowly, she turned around, watching James from the Gryffindor table, throwing something at a Ravenclaw at the next table who turned around and chucked whatever it was back at him. Leave to James to be playing at a time like this. Before she could even show disapproval on her face, the roaring from the Slytherin table distracted her. She tip-toed to see what had happened and she watched as Al made his way down from the stool to the table and was clapped in the back a few times.

Actually, she hadn't been able to process that her cousin had been placed in the House that the kids had despised the most until she saw him sporting the green and silver tie instead of red and gold. It had really been something she couldn't understand. How could you be in your most hated house? Was that possible?

Closing her trunk, she watched as her graceful black cat, Cinders, made her way to her, lying lazily on her lap. The cat had been her only company at Hogwarts from home. As soon as her brother went into the school, he almost pretended not to know her. This was very ironic to her because she had offered nothing but guidence. Lily had been sorted into Hufflepuff, Fred was busy pranking everyone along with James and Roxy had been sorted into Ravenclaw.

At home, their usual Quidditch games were confusing. During the Christmas Holiday break, they normally broke into two teams but they refused to now. Al, Seeker for the Slytherins, refused to play in a team with Roxy because their next game was against Ravenclaw. The other two Gryffindors that did not involve Rose or Hugo didn't want to play with a Slytherin because of the rivalry the two houses had. James didn't want Lily on his team because the Hufflepuff House and the Gryffindor House were also getting ready to play another game against each other. Lily didn't want to be in a team with Roxy because she was mad at her for a reason that she wouldn't say. For some odd reason, Hugo was also mad at Roxy and didn't want her on _his_ team.

Everything had just become more complex than she had wanted it to. Her parents tried to explain to her that night as she cried in her room that this was what tended to happen when people were prejudiced. Rose had argued that this had nothing to do with being a Muggle born or a blood traitor and that they had known each other for years. Hermione assured her that if they didn't want to play with each other, then let them be immature. Plus, when they had been in school, the same things had broken out. To this, Rose said that they had all been Gryffindors, so it's not like it mattered. The thing was, Rose wanted to play Quidditch like they had before.

Rose got up from the floor, picking Cinders up with her and sat on her bed, looking out through her window. Tomorrow-well, in a few hours, really-, they were going to go back to Hogwarts after what had seemed like an eternity. She had been writing to Cornelia back and forth. Cornelia had been lucky enough to be taken to Ireland in the Summer. Her father played in the Quidditch league like her aunt Ginny had before she retired. Cornelia usually got a lot of free tickets to go to games and watch her dad play.

It wasn't that Hermione and Ron never took Rose and Hugo anywhere. They usually went to the Burrow and if her father managed to get some time off, they would spend some time at the beach along with the Potters and her uncle George closed the shop whenever it happened.

Her uncle George's shop was her favorite place to be. If they didn't have anything to do in the Summer, Rose would help him out at the store and he would tell her about all the pranks that him and late Uncle Fred had played. When the bunch had been younger, he had let them create pranks with him and let their creative juices flow. For some reason, Rose had placed in her head that George was her favorite uncle.

Cinders purred happily in her lap, snapping Rose out of her daydreams. She smiled down at the jetblack cat and watching as her eyes closed slowly. Rose set her down on her pillow gently and headed downstairs. Her mother and father were talking softly to each other in the kitchen as Hugo sat on the couch, scribbling on a piece of paper, his owl perched on top of the couch next to Pig.

Rose sighed lightly to herself. At least it was only a matter of hours before they boarded the train.

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><p><strong>I don't know how far I'm going to take this, but this idea suddenly hit me today. Constructive criticism, please. I actually never used the kids in a story before. So that's fun. xD<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

The Slytherin commonroom was empty that morning. Everyone was probably setting up their things inside of their rooms, emptying trunks for the year or still sleeping peacefully. Al just leaned over his book, his white ferret perching itself on his shoulder, almost as if he was reading, too. Unfortunately for him, none of the information within the book was actually sticking to his head.

For a while, he thought that his sister had simply been playing a trick on him, but now he was sure that she was right. Murmurs had been floating about with the seventh years. They knew something was happening. For the first time in his life, Al had seen a Slytherin and a Gryffindor sharing information between one another. It was strange that he had thought this, considering that he was a Slytherin while most of his family, his uncles and cousins, had landed themselves in Gryffindor. He was the only Slytherin. Actually, even Scorpious Malfoy, who he had heard Uncle Ron speaking of one time at dinner, had not been sorted there.

The reason he probably remembered that was because Aunt Hermione had pinched his arm so hard, he had yelped, causing the kids on the table to laugh uproarisly. His own mother was probably the one that laughed the hardest.

"What are you doing up so early?" he heard the clear, rich voice of the prefect laced with a minor Northen Irish accent. The boy's blue eyes didn't seem to hold anything against him, just simple curiousity.

"I was just thinking about something," Al said, shutting the book and placing it under his arm.

"And when did you get that book from the library?" the prefect crossed his arms, giving him a look that Al had seen in one of his parent's friends that rarely came home for dinner. He slipped the book from Al's underarm and examined the title. "When they told me you were a weird one, they weren't kidding. I would have thought your father or mother would have been able to answer any of these questions. Why have a book?"

Al crossed his legs, grabbing the ferret from his shoulder and petting him, desperate to distract himself with something. His mother or father would never answer those questions for him. While Uncle George seemed about to oblige, Hermione had stopped him, but dropped a very powerful hint of going to the library for it. Yet, he couldn't tell the prefect anything, he would most likely voice his disapproval.

"I was just curious and never got around asking," he said softly, taking the book back from Dean carefully as not to seem disrespectful and ran his finger through the spine, feeling the shape of the letters.

Dean gave him a slight look and then turned on his heel and said, "At least put on your robes if you're going to be up this early. Don't want to be late for class."

Al really didn't want to get into his robes yet. There was a bit of resentment that he held against them. Right before the sorting, he had decided that whatever he was going to get, he got. Actually, he was practically sure he was a Gryffindor. Since his father and mother had been, he just had to be one, right? Well, Lily was a Hufflepuff but that was a whole different story. At least she wasn't a _Slytherin_.

He could almost feel the disappointment in his mother's letter after he had told her. The one that seemed to take it surprisingly well was Uncle Ron, though. He had told Rose that he would disown her if she landed in Slytherin, but he hadn't even said anything about the house. Maybe he had just been so proud that Rose was a Gryffindor to say anything.

All he could think of about being sorted into Slytherin was Severus Snape. That's who he was named after. Well, him and Albus Dumbledore. Yet, hadn't he heard a talk between Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron about their years at Hogwarts and how Snape had given them a hard time? Sure, he only knew half the story of the guy's life, but he still didn't see him as a hero or someone that he could say he was proud of being named after.

Al grabbed his ferret by the middle and started back to his dorm.

Why did he have to be the weird Potter?

xxx

The lunchroom was filled with students eating their breakfast, some falling asleep and others looking over their schedules. From the corner of his eye, he could see some of his cousins and siblings, but didn't even wave hello. It wasn't his place to. Al sat at the Slytherin table, far to the corner, next to one of his closest friends, who immediately snatched the schedule from Al's hands and looked over it before beaming at him, "It's going to be a good year. I hear our first game is against Gryffindor."

"Great," Al groaned.

"Come on! We'll beat them," Bill replied, missing the target completely. "We're playing against _Malfoy_. My dad says that when he was in school, his father bought his way into the team. The guy must be horrible at it."

Looking back at the Gryffindor table, Al spotted Scorpious speaking to Rose and some of her friends. They were laughing about something and Rose's friend rested her head on his shoulder as she laughed.

"He's not that bad," Al stated, looking back at Bill. "They beat Ravenclaw pretty bad last year and he was the goalkeeper. Only one goal passed, I think."

"Ravenclaw is pretty terrible at Quidditch," the boy replied.

Al knew his friend was just boasting. He figured there would be no fights between the two as long as they just agreed to disagree.

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><p><strong>Review? Short, I know. I'm still setting things up as of now. This chapter was going to be set on the train, but I couldn't think of anything eventful so far. <strong>

**Oh, and remember that this is from Al's POV, so I'm not at all actually saying that Ginny was actually disappointed that he landed in Slytherin. Just saying. I've had misunderstandings over things like these before.**


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